


Diving Narcissus

by severinne



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Depression, Insanity, M/M, Mindfuck, Self-cest, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-25
Updated: 2009-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 06:09:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/severinne/pseuds/severinne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam cannot escape a past he desires over all other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slash4femme](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=slash4femme).



> Written for the 2009 Life on Mars Ficathon.

  
_‘At lower levels the Narcissus or twin image darkens into a sinister doppelganger figure, the hero’s shadow and the portent of his own death or isolation. In ordinary life there are two central data of experience that we cannot see without external assistance: our own faces and our own existence in time. To see the first we have to look in a mirror, and to see the second we have to look at the dial of a clock.’  
Northrop Frye, The Secular Scripture (Chapter 4, ‘The Bottomless Dream: Themes of Descent’)_

If Sam closed his eyes, if he thought really hard and knocked his heels hard on the floor - one, two, _three_ \- he could remember the first time he knew that something was going wrong. Appallingly, laughingly enough, he had first lost a grip of himself in the abyss of the bathroom mirror, squinting eyes following the line his razor had scraped through the foam, breath held so he could hear the harshly real rasp of blade over stubble.

The blade had been new, eagerly fumbled from the packet that had crinkled bright in his hands, fingers shaking with the fresh triumph of having found the single-bladed things amongst the loud displays for the latest razors, the ones that cut three, four, _five_ times over. Sam knew now that one simple blade was good enough.

One blade was enough to draw blood. Another clumsy slip of the hand as he passed the razor over the jut of his jawbone, and Sam hissed through clenched teeth at the sight of a fine cut nicked into his skin. Angrily, he tossed the razor into the bin and reached for a tissue. He would go back to his old electric razor tomorrow, he decided with a scathing sneer at his own incompetence. He might even announce his change of heart to that DI Drake woman, let her pat him on the head and tell him what a big bloody deal that was, embracing the normative standards of the real world or some shit like that.

His eyes narrowed on the reflection of his neck, daubing the edge of a tissue against the cut until it seeped red and stopped, catching the spider-thin line before it stained his new white shirt. Only – he caught his breath, uncertain – his collar wasn’t white, but a darker cream, striped through with brown and russet and orange and…

Sam flinched back from the sink, frantically scanning his own reflection. He must have imagined it, his shirt was still white. White as the teeth that grinned a grin he couldn’t feel on his own dry, distressed lips.

  


\+ + +

  


He had dismissed the lapse of vision that first time, couldn’t afford to give his mere reflection so much thought, not today of all days. Today he had wanted the cleanest shave, the whitest shirt - he double-checked for blood just in case - and his newest, best-fitting suit, though he left his assortment of ties neatly folded in their drawer in hopes of projecting something more effortlessly casual. He didn’t want to look forced, artificial.

Strangely, leaving his top button undone and his throat bare _did_ feel better, when once he would have felt naked for the lack of a tie. He supposed he should make a note of that later, but for now all his attention was firmly fixed on Maya.

She moved through the flat like the Inspector she was, examining everything but touching only what was relevant to her needs, discretely reserving the bedroom for last. The presence of what used to be their shared bed stifled any small talk down to shy half-glances while Maya finished packing her belongings and Sam watched silently, wistfully, from the corner next to the leaning wall mirror. Her eyes had focused more intently towards him only the once, suspiciously, though she never said anything about her blue shirt with the pink stripe, the one she used to wear on Tuesdays and that was now missing from her half of the closet. Sam had met her gaze steadily, drawing on every deadened nerve in his tired body to feign his ignorance, and tried not to cling too heavily during their parting hug by the door.

‘Won’t you stay for dinner?’ he asked quietly, hoping it sounded like an afterthought and not like desperation. Her contrite smile wobbled at the edges, and he looked shamefully away.

‘I probably shouldn’t,’ Maya said. She moved her hand as though to touch him, then seemed to think better of it, brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear instead. ‘But you go ahead, won’t you? You need to get your strength back.’

He nodded his agreement, hating that she had probably felt his ribs standing out under his clothes during that hug. He shouldn’t have leaned so close.

‘Take care of yourself, Sam.’ And she was gone.

He didn’t bother preparing his planned meal for two, couldn’t be bothered to eat at all, but he did drink the entire bottle of pinot noir before curling onto their bed, Maya’s blue blouse hugged to his chest. He refused to pull back the barren covers, thinking back to early days in a bedsit that good taste had long forgotten, where he used to sleep fully clothed on top of those itchy blankets, when dragging back the sheets and climbing in would have felt like digging his own grave.

Nose buried in the soft cotton of her scent, Sam squeezed his eyes shut, angrily willing himself not to cry.

 _Don’t be such a nancy._ His own voice berated him.

‘She’s gone,’ he muttered miserably. ‘I’ve lost her...’

 _You already let her go._ Impatience kept the consolation harsh, uncompromising. _Remember? In the hospital, you said good-bye._

Sam ground his teeth, clutching her shirt tighter. ‘I was asleep. And she was a damn foetus.’

 _She was a voice on your radio, and a Bollywood princess, and still she said she didn’t want to wait for you._

The realization sucked the stubbornness from his bones, loosened his limbs on the mattress. A sob threatened to snap his throat, and he turned his face into the pillow to force it back to silence, along with the condemnations that burned at the tip of his tongue.

 _That’s not true._ That inner voice smoothly dismissed the fear he didn’t dare speak out loud. ‘That’s bullshit. You’ll see, in time.’

Distantly, above and beyond the raw burn of grief, something warmer tickled over the nape of his neck, like fingertips or a kiss that seared his skin like a memory. It nibbled away some of the loneliness without providing much in the way of comfort, but it was enough of a distraction to lull him into exhausted sleep.

‘You heard what she said, Sam.’ Another slip of voice made the phantom touch moist with breath and tongue. ‘Take care of yourself.’

  


\+ + +

  


Waking the next morning with a pounding hangover gave Sam the much-needed excuse to pretend that the sound of his own voice had been strictly internal, unaccompanied by touch or breath or any other worrying symptoms that might warrant reporting for Drake’s obnoxious scrutiny. Two paracetamol took the edge off the throbbing pain at the front of his skull, an hour of physio exercises kneaded the electric tension of his body into a numb ache, and another long day pouring over case files at his desk devoured any idle thoughts in his mind. Bone-tired but blissfully empty, Sam returned home to a responsible meal of flavourless grilled chicken with a green salad and one slowly-sipped glass of wine that managed to draw out the uncertain evening before he finally, reluctantly, retired to bed.

Despite the slight chill in the air, Sam forced himself to undress down to nothing, leaving no choice but to crawl under the duvet for warmth. He sighed at the weight of feathers bearing down on his chest, shielding his body from whatever his mind had conjured in this room last night, and promptly fell asleep.

He awoke with a shivering gasp, face-down in his pillow, screams for help echoing in his head. Nothing new, nothing any less disturbing than usual, but along with the usual nauseous guilt Sam felt _cold_ , felt gooseflesh prickling over his naked skin because his duvet had somehow bunched itself to the foot of his bed and halfway onto the floor. He desperately wanted that warmth back but he fumbled first for his micro-cassette recorder, eyes heavy with sleep and tongue thick with confession, movement clumsy as he rolled onto his side to reach all the way over, and froze in horror.

Someone was sitting on his bed.

The figure was hunched, unmoving, strangely flat in his shapeless, colourless clothing. Sam stared hard, expecting the apparition to dissolve with enough scrutiny, and bit back a cry when it turned and showed its face. His face.

 _His_ face.

Slowly, as cautiously as though backing away from a snarling dog, Sam rolled and pushed himself upright, arms tensed against the mattress. He entertained an idle hope that the vision would vanish by the time he had managed to shift into a seated position, but still it stared back at him, his own brown eyes glinting with something unfathomable.

Sam took a deep breath, preparing to question the damn thing, and choked on the smells that wafted from the figure. Dust and sweat and petrol fumes and gunpowder, a lethal perfume that married itself to the fresh memory of that train tunnel and made Sam’s blood turn to ice water in his veins.

‘What are you?’ he asked, even though he almost didn’t want to know. Even though he now recognized the drab security uniform he had worn on that last and fatal undercover job, Sam cringed from recognition, waiting for the figure to shift and melt, for the brown overalls to become a plain red dress. For that gun in its hand to become a no-less-threatening stuffed clown.

The transformation never happened. Seemingly unconcerned, his doppelganger merely lowered its gaze as it turned itself on the mattress and crawled further up the bed.

‘Don’t.’ Sam breathed the command, cringing up against the headboard. Its boots were leaving muddy scabs on his white duvet.

‘We should have shot Morgan.’ It spoke with his voice, rational and light, weighing the gun like it were a palm full of gold. Fingers identical to his own curled around the grip. ‘If we had done that, we could have gone back, shot Sykes and all. We could have saved them.’

Sam stared at the gun in his hand. _His_ hand. ‘Morgan is my surgeon,’ he explained numbly, reciting what he knew by rote. ‘He saved my life.’

‘Morgan is a fucking liar.’ There was barely enough light to see the shadowed eyes narrow, flickers of white at crinkling corners as the apparition leaned closer, something in that face as cold as the barrel of the gun drawing a path up his bare leg. Involuntarily, Sam shivered, longing for the pyjamas he had eventually bought in 1973. ‘But it’s not too late. We could still go back and fix it. If...’

The gun nuzzled, both familiar and indifferent, over his half-hard cock before continuing up his belly and chest. It shouldn’t feel so cold if it wasn’t real. ‘If...?’

The muzzle found the tiny point of a razor cut beneath his chin, claimed the almost-healed shaving wound with a firm press of gunmetal gouging his flesh. Sam gasped at how easily the soft skin beneath his clenched jawbone gave way, almost insubstantial compared to that gun. He was melting, shaking, falling…

‘Bang.’

He’s gone.

He’s _gone_. Shuddering hard against his headboard, Sam gulped for air, fingers fumbling at his own throat and finding the razor cut and his fluttering pulse and no gaping gunshot wound. Sweat, not blood, dampened his fingers.

Sweat on his fingers. And muddy half-footprints on his bed.

Hands trembling, Sam dressed as quickly as he could, tugging on his jogging sweats while retreating from the bedroom. He tucked himself tight into the living room sofa and squeezed his eyes shut and didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night.

  


\+ + +

  


By the third night, sleep was an even less appealing idea.

With no hangover for an excuse and not nearly enough paperwork portioned out to the begging-bowl of his desk in CID, his mind had been left free to wander throughout his day, trailing his numb body like a shadow from home to work and back home again. He had coldly evaded his own kitchen, unconcerned with the nightly ritual of food or drink, and had stubbornly gone directly to the bedroom with jaw firmly set as he had stripped the dirt-stained covers from his bed. Washing and drying all his bedding had been a work of unnatural waiting in his building’s downstairs laundry but well worth the grace of a pristinely made bed, white linens crisp in the dark room.

So neatly made that Sam didn’t dare disturb its calm.

Manchester blinked beyond his tall windows like satellites in space. The coloured points of light scattered themselves across a darkness obscured by his faint reflection in the glass. Hands shoved in his trousers pockets, Sam frowned as he struggled to see past his suited self long enough to reconnect with the city that belonged by rights to another man in another time, but his eye was constantly caught in the high contrasts of his shape mirrored in the window, pale skin bright in the dark glass with hands fluttering at the length of his tie...

Sam held his breath, fingers clenching convulsively in his pockets.

‘I don’t understand why you still wear this.’ A brisk, efficient finger hooked the half-windsor knot, loosened it from his throat. ‘It’s like a noose.’

His widened eyes searched the reflection in the window, confirming the presence he could already feel pressed up against his back. They blurred together in the makeshift mirror, a two-headed monster bent upon its own destruction. Despite his mounting horror, something just below his skin prickled with anticipation as he watched hands, identical to his own, gradually unravel his tie, pluck away the uppermost button of his shirt.

‘Isn’t that better?’ The question brushed against his ear as hands came to rest with proprietary care on his shoulders. Sam swallowed hard. He had forgotten about those Cuban heels; they poised his other self a couple of inches higher than his present height in socked feet, just enough that he could stare down his nose at him.

Fingers found that secret trail of nerves at the nape of Sam’s neck, laid down a caress that few of his lovers had ever known to give but that invariably unleashed a deep and wanton purr from his throat. He arched his neck involuntarily, inviting the other to scatter approving kisses along his jugular.

‘Come to bed,’ he urged gently.

Startled, Sam craned his head around, past the narrow-eyed gaze of his double and towards the white expanse of his sleepless bed. His heart was pounding faster with the understanding of what this other wanted of him, blood quickening to realize that the twist of his gut wasn’t revulsion, but lust.

‘I don’t want to sleep,’ Sam muttered stupidly, fingers twitching anxiously at his sides. ‘I’ve had enough of being asleep.’

‘I know.’ And that was all that needed to be said, eliminated any further explanations from the quiet of his bedroom. Hands and hips fit themselves perfectly to Sam’s body, exerting precisely enough pressure to coax him away from the window and towards the bed. At first, the other remained behind him while he unbuttoned Sam’s shirt and peeled it back from his shoulders along with his jacket; while sparing him the strangeness of watching his own face and body, the sight of hands identical to his own working over him was disorienting, like an out-of-body striptease. He was also losing clothing far too quickly while his counterpart remained fully dressed, unbalancing him beyond tolerance. Brazen with impatience, Sam twisted away from the hands now dipping beneath his waistband and, finding his face so close to its mirror, swept in for a wild and desperate kiss.

Unnaturally matched pressure met his lips and tongue, the exact equal to his own slowing intensity, calmed for having claimed its want. There was something distantly strange in the kiss, a neutral nothingness that Sam realized, with another shock, was the familiar taste of his own mouth, commonplace as coming home. Perhaps, faintly, there was a shadow of whisky in his double’s increasingly aggressive tongue, a difference that he sought out with greater force, tilting his head to dive deeper into himself.

The other continued to undress him with brisk efficiency, as though the texture of his suit was repellent to him, but Sam found his touch lingering over fondly remembered details of clothing as he found and unfastened every button. His moan hummed into their kiss at his reunion with his leather jacket, battered yet butter-smooth beneath his hands. Sam pushed it off and let it drop to the floor with something like regret, moving on to the tiny buttons of the fitted polyester shirt with greater urgency but there was no competing with the rougher, more demanding ministrations of his other self, who unceremoniously shoved Sam’s unfastened trousers down to the floor along with his boxer briefs and promptly closed both hands around his cock.

At that first intimate touch, a tight stroke balanced by fingers dancing over the damp head of his cock, Sam’s eyes rolled back into his head. This pleasure was one he was used to giving himself at only his most needy, his most private moments; no other person ever touched him like this, and knowing that his doppelganger naturally knew this, knew _everything_ , was both terrifying and undeniably arousing. His fingers twisted tight in handfuls of polyester, ruthlessly tearing the shirt away from where he buried his face against a bared shoulder. ‘God...’ he gasped shakily, as a too-familiar thumb rubbed pre-come down his length. ‘What are you doing to me?’

A kiss brushed his temple, as teasingly light as the fingertips playing him to complete distraction, before an answer came dark and harsh into his ear. ‘I’m bringing you to your knees.’

And it was exactly what he wanted, to kick his trousers away from his ankles and sink to his knees, taking the shirt with him for a souvenir while his cheek turned to nuzzle over the hardness bulging at tight denim. Sam knew exactly how that felt, the delicious friction of those dark jeans constricting his cock, making it throb for more overt attentions. He answered that need eagerly, scraped his teeth hard over the tented trousers, and felt his own dick twitch pleasurably at the deep moan sounding above him.

He needed more of that empathy, more of this decadent self-indulgence that quickly set Sam’s hands to work on the belt and flies, set his lips worshipping a cock identical to the one he now feverishly fisted between his own legs, lavishing the familiar flesh with every favoured devotion he knew. With his mouth so fervently occupied he had no means to ask, but _oh_ , his other self knew exactly what he wanted in return and Sam nearly blushed at the hand closing around his throat, the fingers of the other tugging at his hair, but there was no place for shame between them.

‘That’s right...’ The breathless words agreed with his thoughts and his actions; an excitable hand tightened around Sam’s windpipe. ‘Fucking love this... such a dirty bitch, little cockslut... _ah..._ ’

The hand in his hair pushed him back at the same time that Sam wrenched backward, panting fast and trembling with lust, his hand clenched tight at the base of his engorged dick to hold off the orgasm that had very nearly crashed over him with those words. Gazing up into the wide brown eyes that were the mirror to his own mind-blown desire, Sam struggled to regain control of this madness, just enough to make this last; he saw the same struggle play out in the other’s face, knew their hunger and determination was one and the same.

They rallied themselves with unspoken synchronicity, footing regained and the remains of clothing lost so they could tumble naked together onto the once-tidy bed and kneel facing each other, kissing and touching in a careful effort to slow this down. With the St. Christopher around the other’s neck marking the only difference between them, Sam could almost forget himself in their identical flesh and fluttering breath. Instead, he dipped his head and tongued a careful path beneath the silver chain, nipped at his collarbone and sucked hard at his Adam’s apple, but still felt the resulting shudder of pleasure reverberate through his own body as well as the one arching beneath his lips and falling back into the rumpled duvet.

Sam mouthed his way lower, climbing down the twisting length of the body that forcefully mimicked his every touch, making him bend and turn, sideways and upside-down within the disorienting white of the bed. His spiraling senses sparked back to life when the sweep of his tongue over a hipbone was answered by an identical wetness branded to his own skin and they were moving in time now, two mouths sliding silken-rough to the same destination.

His lips dragged up the known territory of his own length, found the damp musk of his own pre-come and slid greedily down to the root. The ragged groan that Sam muffled around the cock in his mouth echoed straight through his own groin, from the mouth that was eagerly suckling him in turn. Action and reaction intertwined as fierce and sure as the limbs that anchored their perverse embrace, drowning in the despoiled duvet. Hands and mouths dared each other to brighter, harsher pleasure. Sam’s fingers, wet with saliva, burrowed deep between easily spread buttocks; he writhed at the resulting ache of fingers penetrating his own hole, a delicious stretch that seemed to originate from his own will and touch.

The pitch of their need quickly grew frantic between them again, sultry measures lost to the rush of heat that blurred the separate boundaries of their bodies as skin smoothed into identical skin. Awareness unraveling, Sam came undone and simultaneously swallowed the thick flood of his own orgasm, giving up and taking in everything in an endless circle that seemed to begin and end in the tangled cradle of his own body.

Sated, completed by the trace of his release slicking his smiling lips, Sam Tyler pillowed his head on his own splayed thigh, and closed his eyes.

\+ + +

Sated, completed by the trace of his release slicking his smiling lips, Sam Tyler pillowed his head on his own splayed thigh, and opened his eyes.

  



	2. Chapter 2

  
Sam was cold, like someone somewhere had left a door open to the outside and it swung ponderously in a stiff wind, chilling him from the inside. Shoulders hunched forward, he chafed his hands between his knees for warmth, staring at his own fingers while he worked them together because he could _see_ them rubbing each to each but it didn’t _feel_ the same as it should.

He interlaced his fingers, hands clutching so tightly that his fingernails indented the veined flesh past his knuckles. They looked as though they were clasped in prayer, Sam reflected dully, except that he had never prayed to any god before, none except...

Heart leaping into his throat, Sam released a shaky sigh as a body pushed between his knees, spreading his legs slightly wider. The loose hem of a camelhair coat brushed the backs of his hands, and he bit his lower lip hard to repress a grateful moan as he glanced up from beneath repenting lashes. The coat filled his field of vision but sagged in an unfamiliar way, the body beneath it shorter and slighter, like a child playing dress-up in his father’s clothes.

Both relieved and disappointed, Sam frowned up at this man, identical to himself save for his purloined clothing and sunglasses. ‘Where were you?’ Sam asked anxiously. ‘I didn’t know where you’d gone...’

The hint of a smile played around his lips. ‘Impenetrable,’ he whispered, leaning down close. ‘I pass through crowds like the Invisible Man.’

Despite himself, Sam grinned fondly at the memory, his smile reflecting in the oversized lenses of the aviators looking down on him. ‘Is that what I am?’ he asked wistfully. ‘The Invisible Man?’

‘Don’t be daft, _I_ see you.’ An identical hand took his own, and Sam shuddered at the frisson of heat that passed from skin to skin, already racing up through his arm and spreading through his chest. It felt like rushing to the surface of water, sounds coming closer until they crashed like a wave over him again, the noise of Manchester suddenly _too loud_. He was sitting on a bench by the canal, he realized, set safely away from the throng of business commuters trickling down the stairs and rushing past him to things of seeming importance. Baffled, he glanced down at himself and had to choke back a chuckle to see how well he was dressed to match in his tidy black suit.

‘Invisible,’ he murmured.

  


\+ + +

  
Most of his days passed as anonymous as that, his daylight diminishing in an underwater hum where he would feel the disturbing lack of his other self and very little else besides. Awareness and sensation were privileges reserved for the erratic hours captured in the company of his own body, sustaining himself on his own sweat devoutly lapped from places he could never normally reach with his own tongue. In all other things, he moved with the heavy-eyed indifference of a somnambulist.

Even his first crime scene - something he had dearly anticipated, something that might make him feel useful, _alive_ \- felt strangely detached, as drained of life as the gunshot victim gone cold on the ground. He let his new DI handle the technicalities and mutely considered the corpse’s fine suit, wondering if Tony Crane was still at large or if he had ended up a mental patient after all.

The ringing of his mobile snapped him out of his circular ruminations. ‘Tyler,’ he answered vaguely.

 _‘Tyler.’_

The echo was a familiar game now. Sam found a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. ‘This really isn’t the best time,’ he attempted half-heartedly.

 _‘I know.’_ And it was obvious from that short reply that he knew precisely what he was interrupting. _‘But it’s not the same without him, is it?’_

Sam sighed, already wandering away from the cordoned scene. ‘You know it isn’t,’ he said wearily. ‘I’ve got no idea who’s gonna take care of the kicking and punching on this one.’

 _‘Kicking and punching suspects?’_ His tone was all innocence. _‘Or you?’_

‘Did I mention this is a bad time?’ Sam found a warehouse door ajar along the wharf and ducked hastily inside, keeping his tone to a low hiss. ‘Where the bloody hell are you calling from anyway?’

 _‘I miss that about him,’_ his voice continued, throaty and wistful. _‘His hands and his breath... the bruises that wouldn’t fade for days... Remember the first time we got hard for him?’_

Sam shuddered, not quite sure when him and this other had become a plural sort of person. ‘Yeah,’ he admitted hoarsely. ‘Yeah, I do.’

 _‘That day June got shot, outside the jeweler’s.’_ And yes, that had been the exact day that the physical proximity had become too much, though Sam frequently tried to pretend otherwise because the timing of the thing had been beyond inappropriate. _‘He grabbed us by the scruff of the neck, like a naughty dog, and pushed us to our hands and knees. Right there in the street, where anyone could see.’_

‘The ground was so hard, so dirty.’ Sam swallowed tightly around the breathlessness of his oncoming lust. ‘I... I thought he was gonna give me a spanking or something...’ Mortified at admitting it out loud, he blushed in the darkness.

 _‘We wanted him to.’_

‘Yes,’ he confessed. ‘Yes... I wanted to forget what had just happened. Let go of the guilt I felt. And if he had just punished me right there...’ Sam sucked in a sharp breath, eyes wide and searching, stunned at the words he had let slip. ‘But I was so _angry_ , I couldn’t let him...’

 _‘But imagine if we had,’_ his other self offered, smooth and slow. _‘He’d have left his gloves on... remember what that felt like, his leather hand gripping the back of our neck? He was holding us so tight, almost couldn’t breathe past his thumb digging in...’_ His voice trailed off with a shaky sigh. _‘Are you touching yourself?’_

Sam’s blush deepened down his neck. Without any deliberate thought of his own, his hand had started rubbing slow circles over the erection tenting his trousers. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, in a shy whisper. Reluctantly, he pulled his hand away from himself, clawed his bitten-down fingernails into the wall at his back.

 _‘Don’t stop.’_ The command was quick, harsh.

‘Not now,’ Sam reiterated through clenched teeth. ‘I’m _working_.’

 _‘How many times did we say that to Maya?’_ A derisive huff of breath passed through his mobile. _‘No wonder she left us.’_

A thread of shame crawled up his spine, though Sam wondered if it could have been the cold of the bricks seeping into his suit and pricking at the corners of his eyes. The warehouse was damp, dark and cavernous. Empty.

 _‘That’s right... no one there to see us,’_ the voice reasoned. _‘No one cares what we get up to with our nasty, naughty self... doesn’t that feel better, having our hand all over our cock like that?’_

Sam gasped, fingers stuttering around his heated length. He couldn’t remember taking himself in hand, much less unfastening his trousers to get there. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked. Confusion, resignation and arousal pounded through him, turning him pliant with need.

 _‘Turn around,’_ the voice suggested. _‘Face against the wall. Like he’s about to bugger us right through it.’_

The bricks were rough against his clean-shaven cheek, the grit of crumbling concrete sticking to his moist lower lip. Moaning softly, Sam anchored himself with one shoulder, tilted his hips back so he could jerk himself freely in the space between the wall and his body. The sound of flesh fisting fast over flesh and the hitched breaths he struggled to bite back echoed in the warehouse, merged with the heavy groans pouring through his mobile.

 _‘Feels so dirty,’_ he purred, _‘so good, even with one hand instead of four... you liked that last night, didn’t you, having all our hands working over your body, your greedy dick...’_

‘Yeah... I... it was...’ Sam groaned, squeezing his eyes shut but it only made the images of last night flood over the insides of his eyelids in darker, more lurid detail.

 _‘He would have loved to watch,’_ he went on fervently. _‘Could almost feel him, in the room, those eyes of his taking it all in... Imagine what he would have done, having the both of us to play with...’_

The brickwork scraped the skin of Sam’s cheek as he tensed, shuddered, and came hard all over the wall, his short, breathless cries echoing in the warehouse. He cursed under his breath, turned his head into his upraised arm to muffle the last of his pleasure, and noted vaguely that his mobile had gone dark, the call ended. Shakily, he pushed away from the wall, winced as he tucked his spent cock back into his trousers and tried to wipe his hand clean inside his pocket.

‘Tyler, sir? Hello?’

Sam’s head snapped around at the sound of DI Brown’s distinctive Edinburgh accent filtering from outside the warehouse. With a last furtive check on his clothing and a brush of his fingers over his dust-encrusted cheek, Sam strode for the door at a brisk clip, squinting hard at the sunlight that greeted him.

‘Sir? Have you already called SOCO?’

Sam snapped his eyes up guiltily, blinking blankly at Brown. He was a tall man, even taller than... ‘Er... no,’ he admitted. ‘Not yet, I...’ He gestured meaninglessly with his mobile, drawing Brown’s sharp eye.

‘Oh, I see,’ he replied amiably. ‘Shit luck. No problem, sir, I’ve got it.’ DI Brown had already pulled his own mobile - slimmer, newer than Sam’s Motorola - from his jacket pocket, and offered a fleeting sympathetic smile as he turned away. Confused, Sam glanced down at his mobile, heart sinking at the sight of the blank screen staring back.

He tried the power button, smashed a few extra keys. Expertly removed and replaced the battery before trying again. His mobile remained mockingly silent.

The splash it made when Sam threw the useless thing into the canal was too satisfying for him to worry over DI Brown’s worried frown.

  


\+ + +

  
While Sam knew, intellectually at least, that he could get by without his mobile, he never had the chance to test his hypothesis for longer than a day. A replacement for his drowned Motorola - sleeker, shinier - was waiting on his desk the next morning, police-issued and otherwise unexplained. His new voicemail already had a message waiting.

He listened, lips pressed thin, as DI Alex Drake from the Met thanked him graciously for the tapes he had sent, hoped he would continue to update her on his progress and while she planned to arrange a formal interview some day in the near future she trusted he agreed that his unannounced visit to her office had been unproductive at this time, not to mention deeply inappropriate.

Frowning suspiciously, Sam deleted the message, turned the mobile off and returned it to its packaging. He hadn’t been to London since he had taken Maya down there for a bank holiday weekend, over a year ago.

He fumbled and failed to explain the pieces of his life that no longer converged in the right ways, wondered why his yogurts kept disappearing twice as quickly in the mornings and he couldn’t be eating for two because he wasn’t gaining back any of the weight he had lost, even after he started throwing in the occasional fry-up for breakfast. Those mornings were wistful and silent, both of them eating only half their greasy plates-worth of eggs and bacon and sausage, leaving enough between them to feed another man entirely. Sam sighed as he scraped the waste away, and dragged his other as he himself was dragged into the bedroom, not sure what he craved in place of his unfinished meal but his other always had a clearer idea.

‘You’re the DCI here,’ he groused impatiently as he tugged at Sam’s tie, pulled him down to the bed. Sam caught himself just shy of flattening the body beneath him into the mattress, propped up on elbows and knees as he dipped down to kiss his own image, lapping the salt of their breakfast and the bitterness of coffee from his mouth. Their tongues tangled lazily, long since familiar with this shared intimacy, then the Sam beneath him bucked impatiently, bit down hard on his lower lip and thrashed his legs as though fighting for release.

That was his cue, and Sam took control deftly, catching his other’s hands and pinning them above his head because he _was_ the DCI here. He was the best simulacrum for their need whenever this mood came around, and it secretly grated on Sam’s nerves that more often than not _he_ was the one who had to give away this thing he also wanted for himself.

The problem, Sam realized wryly as his teeth laid a possessive bite into a collarbone that wasn’t truly his own, was that they wanted the exact same thing.

The shirt disappeared quickly, torn hastily away along with the vest underneath. They worked together to shimmy lean legs out of the tight denim he wore today, but Sam found his hands captured and stopped as he loosened his tie and untucked his shirt. Quivering with need and a simmering resentment, Sam held himself still while well-practiced hands unfastened his trousers and drew out his cock, leaving him otherwise fully dressed.

At first, Sam had shied away from the strangeness of this, had insisted on taking his double on his hands and knees so he wouldn’t have to confront the fact of his own face but he was fully accustomed to this now, knew exactly how he looked laid out on his back with his knees spread wide apart. He knew precisely how much fingering his arse could take before impatience got the better of them both and he had to throw his weight upon his other to hold his squirming still. Being evenly matched in strength, Sam had to exert all his effort to take control of those demanding limbs, to keep his other self pinned down and splayed open while he sank deep into him.

Only in fucking like this did Sam begin to feel the taunting edge of their difference, of his own need and shortcomings compared to this wild and callous and _fuck_ , so tight version of himself. The Sam arching beneath him, the Sam that clenched and quaked around his cock was someone he didn’t recognize. Those couldn’t be his eyes so utterly glazed with pleasure, those couldn’t be his lips panting and purring like some contemptuous coquette.

Sam ravaged his own mouth the better to drown out the bitter taste of his own jealousy, thumbs rolling hard over both nipples to heighten the wanton moans that poured back down his throat. As his own release began to coil tight within him, Sam clawed up the heaving chest beneath him, fingers hooking around the silver chain of the St. Christopher at the base of his throat.

 _‘My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident, and I woke up in 1973. I had no idea if I was mad, or if I was in a coma, or… if I’d gone back in time.’_

He twisted the necklace sharply, groaned as a stuttered gasp interrupting faint whimpers of reckless pleasure. His other self thrashed like a drowning man.

 _‘It was like I’d woken up on a different planet. But I knew that if I could find out the reason… then I could get home. DI Sam Ty–’_

Sam tugged hard as his orgasm took his body. The fine silver chain snapped in his fingers, the fine red line of its snaring bite already fading from the other’s throat.

 _‘…DCI Sam Tyler, Greater Manchester Police.’_

  


\+ + +

  
 _click-click_

There was a pen in his hand. Sam found it odd because he had nothing to write and no paper to write upon if charged to do so but he kept it all the same because if he held it close to his ear, it made a perfect _click-click_ sound, like the readiness of a gun.

 _click-click_

The train tunnel was dark and deep; it accounted for the echo of voices pulling him towards promises he had to keep.

 _Sam!_

His gun was at the ready. He could feel it in his hand, cold as the night when he had grazed it along his thigh.

‘Sam?’

 _click-click_

‘Sam?’

He had to go back, they were waiting at the end of the tunnel. Was that sunlight?

 _click-click_

‘Sam.’

Light, but not the sun, ebbed and throbbed into his vision. That sensation of his head breaking the surface of water rolled over him again, and he had to draw a shaky lungful of oxygen before he could speak.

‘Sorry,’ he whispered. It wasn’t addressed to the people around the table.

Glances of condescending confusion rippled around the assembled detectives before DCI Phillips leaned in, repeating a question Sam had never heard. ‘Is it unethical to move for forty-eight hour custodial without formal charge in violent cases that may require detailed psychoanalysis?’

...Psychoanalysis? He squinted, rolled his chair up to the table. Distantly, he worried that he had become the punch-line of some subtle, cruel joke.

‘Um…’

 _Sam. Sam!_

‘Sam. Look at your hand.’

He looked at his hand. He had lost his gun - no, his _pen_ , his pen was gone. And his thumb was bleeding from what looked like a deep cut and felt like nothing at all.

A letter opener he had never seen before clattered from his fingers.

One blade was enough to draw blood.

So simple.

‘I can’t feel it.’

 _‘I know you can’t.’_

‘What?’ Phillips looked confused, maybe worried. Maybe he hadn’t heard that second voice speaking over Sam’s shoulder.

 _‘Sam.’_

‘Uh... sorry.’ He wasn’t. ‘Excuse me.’

Sam helped him push his chair back from the table, for which he was grateful; his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

They moved as one out of the conference room and towards the lift at the end of the hall. His shoes were silent on the linoleum but he could hear the heels of Cuban boots pushing him forward, into the lift.

 _click-click_

He reached for the ground level button but the firm weight of Sam’s hand closed around his wrist and his finger was already pulling away from where it had pushed, firm and deliberate, at the top-most button in the row.

‘To the seat with the clearest view.’ Sam hovered over his shoulder, echoed the song into his ear. The extra inches of height granted by his Cuban heels was no longer an irritation, but a comfort. He felt sheltered by the way Sam’s head bowed over his own.

‘You’ll go with me?’ he asked softly.

‘I’ll be right here,’ he assured, speaking directly against his ear, making him shiver in anticipation. ‘I can run just as fast as you.’

Epilogue

She watched the first time in shock. The second with skepticism. She felt a hum of arousal on the third that melted into horror on the fourth.

Long shot or not, the station’s security footage was her last best chance of studying her lost quarry. Interviews with colleagues were set for the coming weeks, and she was certain she would gain permission to investigate his flat any day now, but for now all she had left was his mellow-throated voice on micro-cassette, a coroner’s redundant report and this soundless minute and thirty-eight-point-eight seconds of Sam Tyler riding a lift to the station’s rooftop on the last day of his life.

The problem was, the camera had caught Sam Tyler _twice._

Tapping her pen anxiously against her lower lip, Drake keyed the recording to rewind, made it go slow this time around. She watched hard for discrepancies, some sign of trickery or accident but all she could see was Sam Tyler turning in the arms of a man who looked just like him, leather enveloping that slight suited body and pushing him tight to the wall of the lift.

Astounded, she watched the patient exchange of touches that slowed to a painful tenderness at quarter-speed. A splayed hand mapped the strong line of shoulders through a leather jacket. A corduroy thigh slipped itself in between legs clad in neatly pressed trousers. A nose and parted lips scented an endless line along a throat offered up like a sacrifice.

Even at such an unhurried pace, their kiss seemed inevitable. The angle of the security camera’s lens didn’t allow her to see the precise point at which that curiously pouting mouth met its equal, but the tilt of heads and the tighter grasp of fingers revealed the urgency of the act, like two bodies desperate to dive into each other and become complete.

They remained like that until the lift doors opened onto a darkness that Drake knew led to a metal door and sunlight.

There was nothing more to see. She turned the tape off.


End file.
